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Drawing the Big Straw by Visiting Little Straw Winery

We have been loving small, family-run wineries lately, and Little Straw in West Kelowna is no exception. Except that they are, because they have FOOD! Double the points for this! Anywhere that provides us with copious amounts of delicious wine has an automatic key to our heart, but add a smorgasbord of our favorite foods and you don’t even need a key. Take my heart, it’s yours.

The Slemka family winery has been around for just over 20 years. They’re known for their signature ‘Tapestry’ wine which is a blend of Reisling, Auxerrois, Schonberger, Siegerrebe, and Gewurztraminer, and which tastes like summer in a bottle, as well as their Auxerrois icewine, which is the only one produced in Canada. We also loved their Pinot rosé, which they suggest pairing with brunch (they REALLY get us). It was too hot to appreciate their reds, so we’re going to have to make another visit (twist our arm, right?😂) to taste these. I’m sure we’ll be bringing more wines home with us again, including reds next time. This time around, we picked up a few bottles of their rosé and Tapestry blend. Their wines can also be found at VQA stores – I saw some recently at our local Swirl Wine Store in Yaletown – so I’m probably going to have to do that red tasting on my own until I make it back to the winery.

Now, back to our gluttony. Above the tasting room is their bistro patio, The Barrel Top Grill, which looks onto lake Okanagan and rows of gorgeous vines. Their menu consists of all of our favourite things – charcuterie and cheese, flatbreads, and tapenades. Best of all, you can order the chef’s choice to get a bit of everything. Pair this with a flight or two of their wines, and you’ll literally be taste testing everything on their menu. Thank you, Slemka family, for letting us order everything on your menu without having to have our stomachs pumped afterwards. Seriously, we must be soul sisters.

We also love that they collect donations to their local food bank in lieu of charging tasting fees! I mean 😍👌.